Thoughts of Her
by NCISgirl1527
Summary: She died five years ago, but she's still with him. It does not matter if the world stops spinning or the sky falls down, she will always be with him. He knows that, he has always known that, but on no day of the year is that more clear than it is today. Gibbs considers his life and his love and the woman he lost five years ago.


_**Because it has been five years since Jenny died, and she is still one of my favorites. So this is Gibbs looking back and reflecting…Hope you like it.**_

_**Disclaimers: No…**_

_**Spoilers: Judgment Day, Damned If You Do**_

Gibbs looked down at the bottle of bourbon in his hand. He wondered what she would say if she were there now. She would probably just ask him to pour her one too. He looked at the bottle again. Setting it down, he sighed. He wanted the alcohol to numb his heart and mind. He wanted to erase the pain, but he knew from experience that the alcohol would have no effect. He would still think of her, and he would still be painfully aware that she was lost to him forever.

Five years was not that long of a time when it came to most things but to Gibbs it felt like a lifetime. What would she say if she could see the mess they were in now? Tony, Ziva, and McGee had all resigned. He was on the other side of the globe. The team had fractured.

He wondered if they were thinking of her too. Tony probably was because he still blamed himself and as a result had the date May 20th forever imprinted on his memory. Ziva too had probably succumbed to a similar fate, but it would be worse for her because those two were closer. He doubted that the others had remembered at all. It was not that they did not care; they just simply did not remember.

Gibbs longed for that oblivion, but at the same time, he feared it. To forget this day, to forget what it meant, would be to forget her, and everything she meant to him. He did not want to, could not, let her memory go. It was one of the old parts of her he had left. Looking back now he wished he had save more things of hers, but anger, childish anger, had led to the destruction of most everything she left him years before.

When it came to her, there were a lot of things he wished he had done differently. He would not have pushed so hard. He would not have fought so much. He would not have made her choose. When they met again, he would have buried his stupid pride and apologized. He would have tried to make things right. He would have tried to make things work.

Maybe he had taken her presence for granted. He believed she would never leave him, but then she did. After she came back, he believe that they would not be separated again, that he would have a chance to make things right, but death had stolen her from him before he worked up the courage to make his amends. Now he had to live forever with the words he had meant to say to her burning his tongue. He would give anything for just one more day with her so that he could tell her the truth: he still loved her.

Of course, he could not go back. No one could. The past was gone. It was impossible to retrieve. It was past. Just like her…except she was not past…not entirely. She was so much a part of him that as long as he lived, a part of her would too. There were other people too, people whose lives she had touched, people who carried a part of her with them and always would.

Still it was different for him because she had done so much more than touched his life. For a while she had been his whole world, and even when she left, he still loved her. He loved her more than anything. He would always love her.

Love. People threw that world around like it was nothing. They used it to describes flings, affairs, and one-night stands. Gibbs used it rarely. He had only ever said it to two women because he had only ever meant it when he looking her to their eyes: Shannon's and hers. Still love was not a sacred state of being. It had not save Shannon, and it had not save her.

The thing about love was that it did not fade. Her death, like Shannon's, had proved that. Time could march on in its weary, unyielding fashion, but it did not matter whether a day had passed since her death or five year or a hundred years. He would love her…forever.

He wondered if she felt the same way about him that he did about her. He did not know for certain, but it did not really matter. The nature of her feelings did not chance the nature of his. Nothing could change his feeling for her. If he could go back to that day five years ago, he would not have sent Tony or Ziva. He would have gone himself, and he would have stayed with her. He would have refused to let her go though with her crazy scheme though if he were honest with himself it was not all that crazy.

She was dying, and she knew it. For a woman who always like being in control, knowing that her body was slowly falling apart would have been tormenting for her. Her last stand allowed her a final victory because she died in the field with a gun in her hand not in a sterilized white room with a needle in her arm. She had died on her own terms. He respected that, but he hated that she had forfeited her final months. She died for him. Mike had told him as much.

Of course Mike was dead now too. Shannon, Kelly, Kate, Mike…they were all dead just like her. He could not save any of them and that killed him. He missed her everyday, just as he missed Shannon everyday. However today was different because today was the anniversary of the day he had lost her forever. He would always be haunted by the sound of Tony's voice telling him that she was not coming home.

He looked at the bottle of bourbon again, not because he wanted to lose himself in it but because it reminded him of her. Bourbon had always been a favorite of hers, but now he looked passed the bottle to the frame behind it. There she was with her auburn hair falling softly to her shoulders and her eyes lit they way they always did when she smiled.

He closed his eyes, and for a moment she seemed real, but he knew she was not. All the same he could not stop himself from speaking. There was no one there to her him, but he whispered to the empty air all the same.

"I love you, Jenny"

_**Because they will always be perfect for each other…Hope you enjoyed it…please review.**_


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